I think it is ludicrous to even pretend that President Obama is not being "rolled" ---AGAIN---

[Atticus]

by McConnell and Boehner and their Tea Party playmates. I know, we haven't quite yet agreed to "compromise" with the Dittoheads, but the signs are writ large over all the news footage coming out of DC. I assure you I will eat crow any way it's prepared if I am wrong and President Obama holds his ground, but I don't think that's a meal I'll have to eat.

Yes, it would be great if the unemployment benefits were extended, but is there no limit to what we will surrender for that? Who do we think will actually wind up PAYING for the unemployment benefits AND the millionaires' tax cut extension? CLUE: it will NOT be the people getting the unemployment benefits and it won't be the millionaires.

This will not be a "Win-Win" situation, despite how some of the "spinners" are trying to package it. The people getting an average tax break of $100,000 from the extension just don't give a damn whether or not poor unemployed people have a Christmas or a home or food for their kids. It will cost them ZERO dollars either way. They just want their tax break and whatever the Republicans have to do to get it for them, fine. That's why they're paying them.

Over ten years, we will borrow 700 BILLION dollars from China and other "friends" on order to pay for the tax cuts for the top 2% of American taxpayers. EVEN IF every last cost-cutting and revenue-enhancing suggestion of the tarnished "Bipartisan Budget Committee" had been adopted, those sacrifices would have merely paid for this millionaire tax cut---i.e., we'd be no better or worse off, economically, in ten years. What hasn't been computed, because it is as impossible to calculate as it is certain to occur, is how many people will DIE so that this top 2% can add to their investment portfolios.

Let's not emulate FOX and insist that both sides of this dispute have equally valid points. If we can't get off our asses and onto the phones about this issue, we may as well turn off the lights and auction off the equipment.

I say the above as a liberal, as a Democrat and as someone who worked his ass off to elect this president. I would love to feel motivated to work for him again.

[Demeter]

1. Like the Well-Trained Dog

Obama can roll over on command.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. When I found this, I never would have believed how much use I would get out of it...

[alterfurz]

3. alternate interpretation

Lucy = Obama
Liberals = Charlie Brown

[kayakjohnny]

5. Oh wow!

:toast: :thumbsup: :hi: :fistbump:

[Poboy]

6. Yes, the alternate interpretation is the case now.

[chimpymustgo]

7. Deserves it own OP. So sad, so true.

[Union Scribe]

4. The GOP has once again played "I'll give you this dime for that quarter"

and won.

[GOTV]

8. Especially with a 2 year extension which is better for the GOP than a permanent extension would be

He gave then a new tax cut stick to beat him with again in 2 years.

[Marr]

10. And an easy means of blaming him for the economic problems that will result.

Just the other day I saw Jim DeMint on television saying, 'we don't have a temporary economy, so we don't need temporary tax rates'. He was arguing that the wealthy will not be sufficiently comforted by temporary reductions, won't "invest", and therefore there won't be any new jobs.

So there you go. Obama pushes the Reagan economic model, *and* will be blamed for the results by the very people who openly embrace Reagan's economic model.

[Marr]

9. He's not being rolled. He's a "New Democrat", and he's getting just what he wants.

"New Democrats" are indistinguishable from the establishment GOP on economic issues. They believe in trickle down economics and servicing the wealthy (or "job creators" as he calls them himself-- a complete endorsement of the conservative position) above all others.

He is a clever politician, of course, but his talent lies in advancing the interests of the wealthy above the working class, and convincing some people that he doesn't want to.